Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The Government's Secret Lab 257 - The Horrific Secrets of Plum Island

Lurking in the dark waters
of Long Island Sound is a mysterious place known as Plum Island. Just
ten miles off the coast of Connecticut, this tiny speck of land has long
been rumored to be the epicenter of top-secret biowarfare research. The
U.S. government acknowledges that the island is home to a scientific facility. Its stated purpose is to study animal-borne diseases.
But investigators are beginning to uncover startling new facts about
this forbidding place. Insiders and ex-employees have come forward to
tell their stories. From security breaches in germ labs, to escaped diseases and potential mass epidemics, this is the real Plum Island story. But the government denies anything is wrong.

Plum Island's Secret Past

Although the origins of Plum Island are shrouded in secrecy,
investigations have revealed the startling fact that, in the 1950s, the
lab was run by a German scientist named Erich Traub, who was brought to
America after the Second World War. His specialty in the Third Reich was
virus and vaccine research.
Along with rocket scientists like Werner von Braun, Traub was spirited
out of post-war Germany to help jump-start the Cold War against the
Soviet Union. The well-documented U.S. government project to recruit German scientists and technicians was known as Operation Paperclip. President Truman approved the project, so long as only nominal Nazi party members without SS affiliation were recruited. However, because the Nazi party
promoted so many of its top scientists, Operation Paperclip ended up
white-washing the pasts of many of its recruits in order to get them
into the U.S.

Traub's particular expertise was in disease-carrying insects—in
particular, the common tick. Ticks are often carried aloft by birds, and
can therefore quickly spread
over large swaths of territory. Called "vectors," ticks and mosquitoes
are also genetically similar. Both contain bacteriophages or plasmids
that transfer genetic material into a cell, or from one bacterium to
another. In other words, they can infect whatever host animal with which
they come in contact. Multiply this by millions, and ticks become the
perfect insect army.